$30,000 of the Award Was For Fees.
Acting Presiding Justice Fybel, on behalf of a 3-0 panel in Marriage of Golka, Case No. G045882 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 21, 2013) (unpublished), sustained a $45,000 sanctions award under Family Code section 271 against ex-husband. ($15,000 went to an accountant, and $30,000 went to ex-wife’s attorney.)
The primary reason for the affirmance is that the record did show that ex-husband failed to be candid in timely producing bank statements so as to increase the costs of litigation. In the process, both the trial and appellate courts credited some sentiments they must see in a lot of these cases: once a petition for dissolution was filed, one side claimed that government grants ran out, business is lousy/nobody is paying, or a business did not grant down time, but then claims things are a lot better once the divorce decree is inked. Also, the family law judge did not demonstrate judicial bias when granting sanctions after observing that the parties spent all their money litigating and then one side complained about sanctions because he did not have a lot of money left over once the haggling started to dwindle down.
Seems like this case is an interesting, and likely objective, “sign of the times” in family dissolution matters.